Courtesy of Gretchen Rubin Moment of Happiness
Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with the taste of the tea and the cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours.
MARCEL PROUST
Swann’s Way
Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive.
EDITH WHARTON
A Backward Glance
So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
JORGE LUIS BORGES
“You Learn”
I’d once been like that, so lonely that I craved further loneliness. Even after I’d made a few friends in college, I would still go out of my way to create whatever conditions I needed that might allow me to be alone.
YAA GYASI
Transcendent Kingdom
It seemed that one had little control over one’s own destiny. All one could do was to get on with the one job that nobody else could do, the job of being oneself.
MONICA DICKENS
Mariana
The great interests of man: air and light, the joy of having a body, the voluptuousness of looking.
MARIO MANLIO ROSSI
“The Essay on the Character of Swift”
Snow on water: silence upon silence.
JULES RENARD
Journal
His first consciousness was a sense of the light dry wind blowing in through the windows, with the fragrance of hot sun and sage-brush and sweet clover; a wind that made one’s body feel light and one’s heart cry ‘To-day, to-day,’ like a child’s.
WILLA CATHER
Death Comes for the Archbishop
My lab is the place where I put my brain out on my fingers and I do things.
HOPE JAHREN
Lab Girl
A quest is more fun than a jaunt.
Beautiful tools make work a joy.
One day, now will be a long time ago.
Sometimes, to keep going, we have to allow ourselves to stop.
GRETCHEN RUBIN
Life in Five Senses
